FASTER, PLEASE: Meltdown-Proof Nuclear Reactors Get a Safety Check in Europe: Researchers say they could build a prototype of a molten salt reactor, a safer, cleaner nuclear power option, in 10 years. “First built and tested in the 1960s, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, molten salt reactors would be the first genuinely new technology for nuclear power generation to reach the market in the last three decades. Producing zero carbon, they use a radioactive solution that blends nuclear fuel with a liquid salt. They can run on uranium, but are also ideally suited for thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel that is cleaner, safer, and more abundant than uranium.”